稽古は本場所のように、本場所は稽古のように

I am not yet a wooden rooster (I have not yet achieved the state of perfect inner stillness).

I fight my enemies with swords, not with salt.

-- The 'Dragon of Echigo' — a Sengoku-era warlord whose devotion to righteous warfare and Buddhist faith made him Japan's most paradoxical military figure

I stand on the battlefield as an incarnation of Bishamonten.

-- The 'Dragon of Echigo' — a Sengoku-era warlord whose devotion to righteous warfare and Buddhist faith made him Japan's most paradoxical military figure

Can you call yourself human if you forget your debts of loyalty and pursue only selfish gain?

-- Called 'the greatest warrior in Japan' by his enem

Do not buy fertile fields for your children and grandchildren.

-- The charismatic giant who led Japan's Meiji Restoration through force of personality and moral authority

Governance must be clean and transparent.

-- The ruthlessly effective architect of modern Japan who built the Meiji state's institutions while his more charismatic peers took the glory

Then we shall fight in the shade.

-- The Spartan king who led 300 warriors in a suicidal last stand at Thermopylae